IEEE Electrification Magazine - March 2015 - 81

Now a mature established event, following the symposiums in Evora, Portugal, and Santiago, Chile, the microgrid
symposium arrived this past year in Tianjin, with
microgrids definitely no longer out on the fringe but very
much swimming in the mainstream. In fact, research has
moved forward into financial, organizational, and regulatory issues. A decade ago, the notion of an energy supply system under dispersed yet effective control ran gratingly
against the power energy grain, while such ideas are now
commonplace. Our guess is that few in the industry would
contest the proposition that future energy supply will need
to involve coordination and control of diverse energy sources and actors of many scales setting goals independently
and participating (or not) in wider energy networks as conditions dictate. Microgrids are becoming more popular, and
the organizers of this meeting were asked to hold a press
conference to discuss the current state of microgrid deployment around the world (Figure 2).
As you will see in this article, the breadth and sophistication of research is now quite apparent. Rather than
dissecting a handful of projects and issues, spotting the significant among the many RD&D projects has now become
the organizers' challenge. This will be borne out by the following regional reports by the chairs of each session and the
panel, followed by a preview of the further reporting anticipated from the productive Tianjin exchanges.
Looking ahead, this is Europe's year again, and the
summertime Aalborg 2015 Symposium on Microgrids will
be held in Denmark. Information on past symposiums
and copies of past presentations can be found at http://
microgrid-symposiums.org/.

asia 1 Session
China was late to engage in microgrid RD&D, and its program dates back only to 2005; nonetheless, over the intervening decade, the Chinese government has supported a
series of key projects relevant to microgrids ranging across
basic theory, enabling technologies, standards, planning,
operation, control, protection, energy storage, power electronic converters, and energy management. Many universities, academic institutes, converter manufacturers, and

utilities have been involved in these projects. The outcomes include commissioned, comprehensive test beds in
laboratories at the Hefei University of Technology (2006)
and Tianjin University (2011), as well as many technical
reports. In recent years, to validate microgrid technical
feasibility, more than 16 demonstrations have been
installed across China. They are usually divided according
to three applications: 1) microgrids installed on physical
islands; 2) microgrids installed at industrial, commercial,
or residential buildings; and 3) microgrids installed in
remote areas.
Island microgrids include the megawatt-scale multienergy-source system on Dong'Ao island, near Macao,
China, which has wind, photovoltaic (PV), and diesel generation with lead-acid battery storage; the integrated desalination microgrids on Dongfushan island, China; and the
standalone microgrid on beautiful Nanji island, China. Additional island microgrids are under construction or being
planned, such as the nonconventional energy demonstration on Wanshan island near Dong'Ao and a China State
Grid grid-connected microgrid project on Luxi island predominantly using wind and solar; BYD has a project underway on a South China Sea island.
Building microgrids are found at multiple sites widely
dispersed across China but typically at industrial facilities
or prosperous commercial buildings in densely populated
areas, such as industrial parks, university campuses, and
commercial or residential buildings. Most of these projects
are connected to 10-kV distribution networks with capacities varying from hundreds of kilowatts up to 10 MW.
Among these projects is China's first smart grid demonstration project at the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City,
which was the site of a symposium technical tour. A PVbased microgrid system is being developed by the East
Power Supply Company in Guangzhou, China, and the dc
microgrid at the Yanqing Laboratory, near Beijing, was also
the focus of a technical tour.
Remote microgrids include the New Energy City in Turpan, Xinjiang Province, in the far northwest of China, an
area of extreme weather. Other examples of remote
microgrids are one with wind, PV, and batteries in Old Barag

Figure 2. The symposium press conference: (from left) Sicheng Wang, Reza Iravani, Benjamin Kroposki, Nikos Hatziargyriou, Johan Driesen,
Ryoichi Hara, Chengshan Wang, Meiqin Mao, and Honghua Xu.
IEEE Electrific ation Magazine / March 2 0 1 5

http://http:// http://www.microgrid-symposiums.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification Magazine - March 2015